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Natural And Artificial Drying Effects On Condensed Tannins Of Sericea Lespedeza, T H. University Of Georgia, W R. Windham, J J. Evans, C S. Hoveland

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Sericea lespedeza [Lespedeza cuneata (Dumont-Cours.) G. Don.] is well adapted to acid soils and low fertility but has generally been considered a low-quality forage due to high levels of tannin and indigestible fiber. Tannin levels increase during midsummer (Windham et al. 1988). The most com­monly used assay for tannin in sericea is the vanillin-HCl pro­cedure (Burns, 1963) on oven-dried samples. Oven-drying has been reported to cause increased polymerization or oxidative changes in tannins (Goldstein and Swain, 1963). Fresh-frozen sericea contained higher amounts of extract­able tannin than field-dried forage and fiber digestibility of high-tannin sericea by sheep was much lower …

Community Stakeholders’ Perceptions On Growing A Nonprofit Donor Base Through In-Kind Donations, Brittany A. Heine

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In Northern Virginia alone, over 90,000 people are food insecure. The USDA has reported strong correlations between food insecurity and negative health outcomes. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to determine community stakeholders’ perceptions on engaging in strategic partnerships with Organization X using in-kind donations as a strategy to decrease the organization’s expenditures and grow its donor base. 14 community stakeholders were chosen through purposive sampling and participated in semi structured interviews. Using the conceptual framework of the unified theory of revenue generation for nonprofits, interview questions were developed to determine the variables that impact a stakeholder’s decision …

Large Mammal Herbivores As Gardeners Of Tropical Forest Ecosystems, Kathryn Garner

Student Scholarship

Ecosystems worldwide are experiencing changes in structure and function as populations of fauna decline and experience local extinctions (Torres-Romero et al. 2020). Due primarily to their body size, large mammal herbivores (LMHs) are disproportionately prone to extinction from human activities such as agricultural expansion, deforestation, and anthropogenic climate change (Pringle et al. 2023). Additionally, as the number of domesticated LMHs (i.e. cattle, pigs, etc.) continue to increase in both density and distribution, their wild counterparts are continually displaced, resulting in increased competition for resources and an increased risk of disease transmission between domestic to wild species (Pringle et al. 2023; …

Examining Sustainable And Regenerative Viticultural Practices In The Rheinhessen Wine Region Of Germany, Claire Hoffmann

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

No abstract provided.

Ghosts In Glass: Ghost Crabs (Ocypode Quadrata) As Judges Of Glass Sand For Coastal Restoration, Emily Parrish

Poster Presentations

Coastal erosion is heavily impacting coastal ecosystems across the Gulf. For instance, the state of Louisiana loses a football field worth of land every 100 minutes (Couvillion, 2017). The drastic loss of coastline highlights the dire need for restoration in the Northern Gulf Coast. An unexpected solution to this sediment loss may solve two major environmental issues at once by diverting millions of tons of glass waste from entering America’s landfills each year. By crushing glass to create sand and gravel for coastal restoration, we may generate a consistent and sustainable source of substrate. Our goal is to determine the …

The Impact Of Maternal Age On The Expression Of Transgenerational Plasticity In Daphnia Pulicaria, Calvin Nguyen

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Transgenerational plasticity refers to heritable, non-genetic changes in phenotype that persist across multiple generations and can enhance offspring survivability in variable environments. In Daphnia, increasing maternal age has been associated with maladaptive plasticity. To investigate this relationship, six clones were collected from two Wisconsin lakes and acclimated to laboratory conditions through a common garden rearing process. For each clone, ten replicates were generated and evenly divided between young (clutches 2–4) and old (clutches 5–8) maternal age groups. Offspring were exposed to three dietary treatments for three experimental generations: one fed only green algae, one fed only cyanobacteria (a nutritionally …

Cuegen: Customizing Sensor Captions For Neon Bending Tutorials, Gunnika Kapoor

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Methods of knowledge transfer that rely primarily on visual and/or auditory formats do not effectively convey context-specific or implicit skills, known as tacit skills. This limits knowledge transfer. In this work, the use of customizable pitch captions and spatial audio vibration captions is proposed to aid in conveying this tacit knowledge for neon glass bending video tutorials. Such a system is designed to provide users with greater control and support, which may maximize the information they obtain from, improve the autonomy they have with, and experience they have with a learning tool. As such, a system interface was developed that …

Deepfakes On Trial: Developing A High-Accuracy, Court-Admissible Ai Pipeline For Deepfake Detection In Corporate Fraud Litigation, Aiden J. Green

Honors College Theses

As deepfake technology advances, cybercriminals are increasingly using AI-generated videos and audios to impersonate executives and carry out sophisticated CEO fraud schemes. These synthetic forgeries target human trust and corporate communication systems, creating an urgent need for forensic tools capable of authenticating digital evidence with legal accuracy. This thesis presents a forensic-grade AI deepfake detection pipeline designed for this purpose, emphasizing courtroom admissibility, reproducibility, and evidentiary integrity. Built entirely with free, opensource tools, the framework combines metadata analysis, AI-powered spectrogram analysis, neural artifact detection, and facial manipulation recognition into a transparent workflow that accurately identifies synthetic media. It was trained …

Development Of Novel Pharmaceutical For Optimization Of Opioid Overdose Treatment, Larae Kram

Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

Although opioids are highly effective drugs for pain management, their overuse and addictive nature has caused an opioid epidemic, resulting in many cases of opioid addiction and overdose. There are two current opioid overdose drugs that are FDA approved: naloxone and nalmefene. These drugs have a higher affinity to the active binding pocket on the opioid receptor than opioids do and displace the opioids, preventing any further binding of the opioid and halting the opioid’s effects. However, naloxone is not active long enough to outlast the duration of the opioid and nalmefene causes severe withdrawal symptoms. The development of more …

Performance Optimization Of A 1:10 Scale Radio-Controlled Car Through Aerodynamic And Mechanical Enhancements, George Kerner

Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

Changes in the performance of a 1/10 scale radio-controlled car due to various mechanical and aerodynamic modifications were investigated. The car’s mechanical performance was evaluated by measuring lap times on custom figure-eight and oval tracks to assess handling. A straight 60-foot track was used to measure acceleration times. Mechanical modifications included a low-center-of-gravity chassis, a higher power motor, and wider street tires to optimize suspension, drivetrain, and grip. Aerodynamic enhancements included the integration of front and rear spoilers, a diffuser, and an undertray all designed using Autodesk Fusion. All aerodynamic components were 3D printed and mounted to the vehicle for …

Logic's Modern British Up-Enders, Defenders, And Extenders: Whately's Revitalization Of Logic, Calvin Jongsma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Logic developed dramatically during the last half of the nineteenth century. The baseline for these transformations in Great Britain was the revival of logic by Richard Whately around 1825. Whately successfully defended syllogistic logic as the science of valid reasoning against potent seventeenth and eighteenth-century detractors—Bacon, Locke, Reid, Campbell, Stewart, and others. In so doing, he made logic an intellectually respectable field of investigation for the next generation of logicians to explore and extend. This included John Stuart Mill (inductive logic), Augustus De Morgan (logic of relations), and George Boole (algebraic logic; propositional logic).

Biodegradable Active Packaging: Exploring The Antimicrobial Efficacy And Compostability Of Chitosan-Based Films, Rachel Mchugh

All Theses

The overarching purpose of this experiment is to create an active packaging component that has both antimicrobial and biodegradable properties specifically designed for poultry food products. For the scope of this study, the packaging component created would theoretically be used in conjunction with another material, such as a poultry tray which are commonly used for fresh poultry products. Based on the scope and purpose of this experiment, biopolymer films and coatings were considered after the initial literature review. Due to the goals of the packaging component, chitosan, a polysaccharide shown to have antimicrobial properties and an inherent ability to biodegrade, …

From The Bleachers To The Browser: Redefining Fan Experience With Ar And Ai In Smaller Teams, Jennifer Lee Wunder

Theses

This project documents the creation and deployment of HootyHoo, an interactive augmented reality (AR) mascot experience designed for the O’Fallon Hoots, a small-scale collegiate summer baseball team. Built using accessible, open-source tools such as WebXR, Mixamo, Meshy, Botpress, Claude and ChatGPT, this prototype merges AI-driven conversation with animated 3D avatar interaction—redefining how fans engage with sports organizations digitally. Unlike enterprise-level applications used by professional franchises, HootyHoo is entirely browser-based, eliminating the need for app downloads and ensuring maximum accessibility for families and new fans with smartphones. The experience centers on Hooty, the team mascot, who answers questions about baseball and …

Reevaluating The Role Of Ruppia Maritima: Recruitment Dynamics And Habitat Use By Blue Crabs (Callinectes Sapidus) And Associated Benthic Fauna In A Mid-Atlantic Seagrass Community, Delaney St. Pierre

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The value of seagrasses as essential fish habitat is well recognized, but limited data exist on the value of one particular species, Ruppia maritima (widgeon grass), as habitat for fish and invertebrates. During the summer of 2024, I evaluated R. maritima, Zostera marina (eelgrass) and mixed beds to assess their relative value as habitat in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. Results from throw traps indicated significant monthly differences for pipefish, gobies, blue crabs, grass shrimp, and sand shrimp, driven by active recruitment events. When evaluating habitat type, we found no taxa that were significantly more abundant in Z. marina habitat as …

Thermal Biology Of The Eastern Treehole Mosquito Aedes Triseriatus (Diptera: Culcidae) And Other Vertivorous Dipterans, Kelly I. Zimmerman

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Temperature plays a critical role in mosquito life cycle, behavior, and other ecological interactions. My dissertation analyzed how temperature affects egg hatch rates of the eastern treehole mosquito (Aedes triseriatus) and how amino acid substitutions in TRPA1 correlated with host finding through thermotaxis and the convergent evolution of vertebrate feeding/utilizing in Dipterans. As ectotherms, embryonic development and egg hatch rates are directly influenced by the water temperature mosquito eggs are oviposited into. Ae. triseriatus eggs do not hatch all at once, to avoid potentially high larval mortality rates due to their non-static oviposition sites. They engage in staggered egg hatching, …

Life Cycle Analysis Of Cosmetic Products -- Assessing Environmental Sustainability And Potential Impacts, Karina Magro Machado

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The cosmetic industry has a significant environmental footprint due to its reliance on water, energy, petrochemical-derived ingredients, and plastic-based packaging. This study performs a cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of three cosmetic products: CeraVe Daily Moisturizing Lotion, bareMinerals Gen Nude Powder Blush, and Gillette Foamy Regular Shave Cream. The analysis was conducted using OpenLCA software and free databases, modeling each product across raw materials, packaging, manufacturing, transportation, use and end-of-life phases. The results showed that the shave cream had the highest environmental burden to three out of the four categories, especially in consumption and carbon …

Tracking Fall Migration With The Motus Wildlife Tracking System: The Fate Of Window-Struck And Captive-Raised Passerines, Cailin O'Connor

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Many species of North American passerines migrate along the Atlantic flyway in the fall to reach winter habitats in the southeastern United States, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Birds face many perils along their journeys including window strikes, which kill over one billion birds per year in the United States alone. Some birds survive the impact and may continue their migration. These birds may suffer delayed mortality or show aberrant migration due to injuries. This research seeks to understand if window-struck birds that initially survive bird-building collisions survive into the future and, if so, if they migrate effectively. …

Antiproliferative Effects Of Salvia On Breast Cancers., Allison C. Portaro

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in female adults, with 2.3 million new cases worldwide in 2020. Plants have been used in traditional medicine and are a potential source of pharmaceuticals. One example is the large Lamiaceae (mint) family. The Salvia genus, commonly known as the sages, is the largest genus in Lamiaceae with almost 900 known species. Salvia lyrata (lyre-leaved sage) has a history of Native American medicinal use to treat cancers and other ailments resulting in this plant being referred to as ‘cancer weed.’ Extracts were produced from the leaves of S. lyrata, S. lyrata …

Reinforcement Learning, Modeling Markets, And Professional Basketball Free Agency, Jacob Cohn

Computational and Data Sciences (PhD) Dissertations

This dissertation presents a reinforcement learning-based approach to modeling and optimizing decision-making in professional basketball free agency and related economic environments. A Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework is introduced to capture the strategic interactions of NBA teams bidding for free agents under budgetary and roster constraints. To address computational scalability challenges, a reinforcement learning (RL) environment is developed, leveraging Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) to approximate optimal policies for team decision-making.

Empirical results demonstrate that the RL agent successfully learns strategic bidding behavior that aligns with dynamic programming benchmarks in simplified settings while scaling effectively to larger, intractable environments. The study …

Extending Cover Crop Growing Window To Improve The Health Of Environmentally Sensitive Soils, Noshin Ara Tunazzina

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sloping and sandy soils are highly susceptible to degradation. The health of these soils could be improved with cover crops (CCs). However, CC effectiveness in improving soil health mainly depends on CC biomass production, which is often low in temperate regions. The question is: how can we increase CC biomass production? Lengthening the CC growing window can be a potential strategy. This study assessed how 1) interseeded and terminated early (2-3 weeks before crop planting) CC, 2) interseeded and terminated late (at crop planting) CC, 3) drilled (after harvest) and terminated early CC, 4) drilled and terminated late CC, and …

Novel Methods For Assessing And Prioritizing Road-Stream Crossings For Aquatic Organism Passage, Lesley E. Twiner

All Theses

Anthropogenic barriers such as dams and culverts have led to riverine habitat fragmentation and decreased fish diversity worldwide. Low-head structures such as culverts are far more abundant than large dams and may have a larger cumulative impact on river connectivity. Many efforts to inventory road crossing barriers and prioritize removal and restoration efforts do not consider temporal variation in flow. We used cameras to gain continuous water level monitoring data to quantify the relationship between precipitation events and outlet drop height. In the spring of 2024, we selected 25 culvert sites in upstate South Carolina and set up cameras to …

Assessment Of Lake Salvador Shoreline Dynamics To Support Restoration Of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation In Jean Lafitte National Historical Park And Preserve, Louisiana, Lydia V. Dipaola

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

High wave energy degrades shoreline habitat between Lake Salvador and Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve (JELA), Louisiana. JELA constructed a northern breakwater in 2004, and a southern breakwater in 2024 to protect the shoreline and promote restoration of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). This study analyzes Sentinel-2 imagery to quantify coastal loss along the JELA-Lake Salvador using the Change Polygon Approach, assessing annual, cumulative and major storm event-associated shoreline changes for January 2017-2025. SAV cover, nekton diversity, wave energy, and turbidity were measured before-and-after southern breakwater construction to monitor ecological and environmental outcomes. The JELA-Lake Salvador shoreline has lost …

Toward Robust Semantic Segmentation In Levee Infrastructure Monitoring: Enhancing Accuracy With High-Fidelity Synthetic Data And Ensemble Learning, Padam Jung Thapa

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: Levees serve as critical flood protection structures, but failures due to inadequate maintenance and extreme water pressures have led to devastating events such as Hurricane Katrina. Manual inspections are slow, labor-intensive, and prone to human error, necessitating the development of automated solutions. This study proposes an AI-driven framework for levee inspection utilizing deep learning-based semantic segmentation to detect rutting and enhance the identification of sand boils. To address dataset limitations, high-fidelity synthetic images are generated using DreamBooth for fine-tuning, while ControlNet adds structural constraints to enhance realism and consistency. A semi-automatic convex hull annotation technique enhances labeling efficiency, and …

Animal Burrow Detection In Levee Systems Using Res-Net 34, Christopher D. Moore

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Animal burrow detection is a time-consuming and costly task for levee inspectors. Annual budgets run up to approximately $16 million per state. The inspectors typically will have to travel to the inspection sites using government-assigned transportation. Depending on the distance to the site, it may take minutes or hours to arrive before any productive inspections occur. Once at the site, the inspectors were subject to human error, overgrown foliage, severe weather, or prohibitive landscaping that would make any human inspection impossible. Also, animal burrows could be small enough or overgrown, so the human inspector misses the problem areas. We aimed …

Controls On Nutrient And Sediment Export In A Non-Perennial Agricultural Stream, Kathleen Cutting

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is expected to increase flow variability and intermittency in streams, changing the magnitude and timing nutrient and sediment delivery. This may exacerbate water quality issues in agricultural landscapes, where nutrient and sediment inputs are often elevated. Elevated nutrients can drive eutrophication in downstream waterways, and excess sediment loss can decrease primary productivity. Non-perennial headwater streams are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and agriculture as they serve as key sites for nutrient cycling at the terrestrial-aquatic interface. Despite their importance, the interactive effects of agriculture and stream intermittency, as well as unpaved roads in rural watersheds …

A Robust Rf Fingerprinting Approach Using Physics-Informed Neural Networks, Jozef Dusenka

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Radio frequency (RF) fingerprints, caused by unique imperfections in communication hardware, offer a promising solution for zero-trust security. However, existing RF fingerprinting techniques, which aim to extract these signatures from transmitters to uniquely identify devices, often struggle with robustness in the face of temporal and spatial variations in real-world, time-varying wireless environments. For example, a neural network trained on RF signals collected on Day 1 can experience a significant performance drop when tested with data from Day 2.

To address this challenge, we propose a novel, robust RF fingerprinting method based on Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs). Rather than training the …

Flow Field Surrounding Bluegill (Lepomis Macrochirus) During Suction-Feeding, Jensine Caroline Coggin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Suction-feeding is a common method for capturing prey by aquatic organisms and contributed to the diversification of fishes by enabling them to consume a wide range of prey. Suction-feeding is a complex fish-fluid interaction governed by various hydrodynamic forces: inertia, unsteady, viscous, and pressure gradients. These forces are described by the coupling between the flow physics equations (Navier-Stokes) and the dynamic behavior of the fish (motion and forces). However, the distribution of the pressure field that drives this process, and the extent to which suction-feeding is three-dimensional, remain underexplored. I estimated the pressure within the flow field surrounding the mouth …

Ediacaran Paleocommunity Structure, Body Size Evolution, And The Rise Of Complex Animals, Matthew Philip Craffey

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The Ediacaran period (635-538ma) is a key interval in the evolution of life as it records the first macroscopic animal communities. Major extinction pulses appear to have altered the composition of the global marine biosphere between each sub-interval of the Ediacaran Period: the Avalon, White Sea, and Nama assemblage Zones. While considerable attention has been paid to the causes of these extinction pulses, less has been afforded to the consequences of Ediacaran biotic turnover for community organization and function. Moreover, it is unclear how body size - the defining trait of macrofauna - affected the transition between animal groups across …

Spatial Ecology And Predator–Prey Interactions Of Mountain Lions In California's San Francisco North Bay, Jacob A. Harvey

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding spatial ecology and predator-prey interactions are central to wildlife ecology and conservation. We tracked mountain lions with GPS telemetry to evaluate space use, predator-prey interactions, and resource selection in California’s San Francisco North Bay, USA. In Chapter 1, we evaluated the influence of human disturbance on home range size, prey composition, and kill rates on black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) across an urban-rural gradient. Both males and females increased home range size with increasing development at low to moderate levels of development, but female home range size stabilized across greater proportions of development while male home range …

Maggot Mass Effect On The Development And Survival Of Forensic Blow Flies, Akomavo Fabrice Gbenonsi

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Forensic entomology scientists use blow flies' developing patterns to estimate the postmortem interval (PMI). However, larval aggregations produce metabolic heat, resulting in complex microclimates that may change growth timetables. This study investigates how larval density and associated temperature changes affect the development and survival of two forensically essential blow fly species, Lucilia sericata and Calliphora vicina.

This study examined how larval density and associated thermal profiles affect the development of both blow fly species. Using a split-plot design, we tested four larval densities at 25°C and 30°C, with temperature gradients measured via thermocouple at four mass positions three times …